Tom Filworthy approached the building where he worked. Out
front stood huge vertical rulers used to measure the growth of
young giants. Tom entered through a door in the center
that was his size, human size.

Tom worked in the twentieth sub-basement, the lowest
of the sub-basements. He worked alone
to clean and dust the old books stored down there. This day Tom
worked extra fast so that he could attend that evening's
Summer celebration of the full moon.

Tom never wondered why they created giants, nor why, after the
giants were old enough, they were sent into the great forest
beyond the city wall, to live with other primitive giants.

Tom liked to read. He would often eat his sack lunch while
reading an ancient text. He never wondered why the language
in books ten-thousand years old should be legible to him today.
He never wondered why books were still printed despite
the digital revolution five hundred years ago. Tom never wondered
about much at all.

It was during this fateful lunch, that noontime, the first
month of Summer under the first full moon that Tom made
a discovery. In one of the oldest books he'd found so far,
Tom discovered the reason for giants.

Long ago, it seems, the population of the Earth had grown too
large. Plague and starvation were everywhere. The fish were
poison, birds carried terrible sicknesses, even some food plants
had turned deadly.

It was in this world, in the days predating the fall and
extinction of mankind, that a plan had been devised.
A race of tiny people was created. These people were barely
the height of an almond. They were housed in an artificial
city made to last forever. They were given the complete
DNA record of all humankind. They were charged with
repopulating humanity after its fall.

Tom looked at his own hands. They seemed normal and
and human sized to him. But the thought percolated through
his mind, could it be? Was he one of the miniature people?
Were the giants the actual humans?

Tom put the ancient book back on its shelf and resumed
dusting. He tried to push the thought from his mind.

But, alas for poor Tom, the idea took hold that summer
day, under the first full moon. Tom conceived an idea
that would someday save the race of primitive giants and
threaten with extinction his own race. Tom dusted and thought,
dusted and thought. And for the first time ever, Tom wondered.

When Terry's family returned home from their Disneyland vacation, Terry
button-holed her mother at once.

"Mom," Terry said. "Please don't let anyone see that picture of me
on the horse. I would be embarrassed to death."

"Why dear? It's a very cute shot."

Terry scrunched her face at her mom. "The horse," she said. "The horse
is fake."

"Oh don't be silly. Of course the horse is fake. It was Disneyland after all.
They wouldn't let children ride real bucking broncos, would they. And besides,
if you think that is embarrassing, imagine how embarrassed your brother will
be later, when he grows up. Imagine his mortification, being hugged by
a giant Micky Mouse."

"A hundred years from now what difference will it make. They'll look at
that picture and only see a cute girl in a cowgirl hat. I guess they may
get better at drawing backgrounds, but they will never be able to draw
a real background. No, I'm afraid that's the best it will ever get."

One day, long, long ago, a cat slept on the deck of a boat.
Back then, it was not uncommon for Medusa to stroll among
mortals. Her snakes were mere worms, so by keeping her head
covered, she appeared normal. It is just too bad the cat
slept where it was when Medusa lifted her veil to sneeze.

The cat remained stone for thousands of years. It's surface
eroded over time, making it less valued as sculpture than
as kitsch. It is in this way that it made its way from
Africa, to Europe, and finally to the sunny climate of
California.

Resembling the art of a child, the cat was by this time
sadly more cartoon-like than cat-like. So it came that
Donna Frost spotted the cat in a flea market and bought
it for a dollar.

Donna lived in Sausalito just north of the Golden Gate
Bridge. She lived on a houseboat, the color of which
nearly exactly matched the color of the cat, and visa versa.
She arrived home and set the cat in its new home on her
deck.

Further up the dock, in a purple houseboat, lived the
great, great, great, grandson of Medusa on his father's side.
Being male, young Mel carried the thawing gene, rather than the
freezing gene. It was weak, so many generations from the
original, so the effect was slower.

Mel always walked the dock early weekdays to catch his
school bus into Mill Valley nearby. The day after the
cat's arrival, Mel stopped and noticed something new.
It was a crude statue of a cat, almost like a cartoon.

A week later, the day after a hard rain, and a chilly
morning, Donna awoke and went out to the dock to see
if any of her plants had been damaged. A few flowers drooped,
but otherwise all appeared fine.

Then she noticed her cat was gone. She assumed someone had
filched it, probably one of the many tourists that came by.
Then she noticed the dew on the deck. Clearly visible were cat
paw prints. They led from where the cat statue had rested, to the
edge of the houseboat near the gangplank, then disappeared.

She rushed back inside to find her camera. But by the time
she found it and returned, the sun had warmed the air enough
so that the dew had evaporated. All she saw when she returned
with her camera, was a bare deck.

That boy from up the way walked by just then on his way to
catch the school bus. "Morning," he said.

Wayne the sea gull was flying alongside a boat when something stopped
him in mid air. He just hung there, suspended and helpless. All he
could think was, "!!."

Evil genius Jesse had recently mastered the art of mental control.
He had practiced it on dogs and cats with great success. This cruise
provided him with the opportunity to try his control on birds. Jesse
believed, if he could control birds, he could control the world.

Wayne flapped his wings furiously, but they didn't move.

Jesse released the bird, happy with his progress. He then turned his
attention to the people on the shore in Sausalito. "I will make them
all jump in the water and drown," he said to nobody in particular.

Wayne thought, "!!." He flapped and found he could move again. Afraid, he
flew higher and higher. Then he paused and looked down. Far below him
he saw a man on a boat and thought, "!!!."

Evil Jesse felt his mind wrap around all the people on shore. He
saw them all stop moving and stiffen. Evil Jesse smiled his evil smile.

Wayne became angry, or as angry as a sea gull could ever become.
He dove, flying fast, then faster. He dove straight at the evil man.

Evil Jesse formulated the thought in his head. I will have them all
run and dive head first into the bay, he thought. Yes, that will
be wonderful.

Wayne's beak struck the man's head so hard it broke Wayne's neck.
Wayne tasted blood in his mouth and, as he tumbled into the choppy water,
his last thought was a peaceful, "."

Evil Jesse was startled and knocked back from the railing. A bird
had knocked his head hard, drawing blood. Evil Jesse shook his head
to clear it. Then he noticed all the people on the shore were moving
again. He concentrated and commanded them to stop. But his command didn't work.
He tried to freeze a bird in flight, but that failed too.

Evil Jesse had lost his evil powers. The world had been saved by
a heroic sea gull named Wayne. But nobody knew it but Jesse, and
soon Jesse forgot the event too. He became normal and lived out
an interesting, pleasant, but not-evil life after that day.

But those of us who write of Wayne will remember him. The hero that
saved the world and in so doing, gave his own life so bravely.
So to Wayne, and to all gulls, we say, "!."

When the elevator opened in the sub-sub-basement, Bob Temple stepped off and
found himself in a long, dim corridor. He heard the elevator close
behind him and said, "Strange. I didn't know this store had a sub-sub-basement."

Bob was a bit of a milk-toast. He pushed the elevator call button but it would
not illuminate and would not return. "Oh no, I'm stuck here."

The corridor was wide enough for a car to drive down, but dim because
it was only lit by an occasional caged bulb in the center of the ceiling.
The walls were painted a smooth glossy white. A black chair rail ran along
both walls at waist height, and the floor was linoleum patterned with tiny flowers. "Oh my."

Directly across from Bob, and every so often in either direction, were
closed, black doors. There was no sign or number on any of the doors. "I wonder
what's in there? Should I?"

Bob stepped up to and opened the door directly across. He found himself
facing a small bowling alley with only two lanes. It smelled old and
abandoned, and dust was everywhere. "I wonder why there's a bowling alley
here?"

Bob rubbed his hair then turned and left to discover other doors.

He discovered a barber shop, a static weight room, a storeroom full of barrels,
a library with books locked inside cages, a small zoo full of empty cages,
and an empty swimming pool. All were abandoned and dusty.

Eventually he found a short corridor with a brown door at the
end. Behind the brown door
was a brightly list restroom. Bob realized he'd been holding his water for
a long time and needed relief. "Where are the urinals?"

There were none, so he used a stall. Afterward he washed his hands at one
of the many sinks that stood in a formal line across the wall.

"What in Lord's name are you doing in here?" A woman's voice intruded
as he dried his hands. "You have no business in the women's loo."

Bob turned, about to defend himself, when he felt the woman grab his
ear and haul him unceremoniously from the room. "The men's is across the
hall," she said and let go.

Bob found himself back in the Notions department in Harrods. "How did
I get here?"

Bob spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find his way back to the
sub-sub-basement.
But none of the elevators possessed buttons for such a basement,
nor did any of Harrod's employees ever hear of a sub-sub-basement.

At closing time, Bob found himself outside on the sidewalk of
Brompton Road. "Was that real?"

Real or not, the sub-sub-basement gave Bob a taste for adventure he'd never had
before. He began to travel. Day trips at first, then over-nighters. He began to try new things. He began to meet
strangers and make new friends. Bob emerged, it would seem,
from the sub-sub-basement into
a new, daring life for himself. "Wow, the Amazon is really wide!"

This is the last photo ever taken of Stan Graves. That is, of course,
in this reality.

Just before this photograph was taken, Stan rounded a corner in Paris
and spotted a twinkle in the gutter. He paused. It was a twinkle like
glass or a shard of crystal. He paused only briefly.

At that moment, his life forked. The him we know, investigated the
twinkle. The other him, the one we will never know, ignored the twinkle.

Stan bent and picked up the piece of glass. It looked like a diamond.
But surely, he thought, it could not be a real diamond.

Stan stuck the diamond in his pocket and went to have his photo taken.

Afterward, Stan stopped at a jewelry store and asked if the diamond
was real. The proprietor called the police. Stan was arrested.

The trial was swift. Stan was convicted of robbery and murder. He was
imprisoned for life.

In both realities, he asked the photographer to mail the photograph
back to his fiance in the States. In this reality, he never followed
that photograph home. In the other reality, he returned home and married
and had two fine children.

In this reality, Stan was released when he was seventy years old. By
then, he spoke French comfortably so decided to remain in Paris.

In 2007, his daughter from the other reality visited Paris. She rounded
a corner and happened upon a twinkle. She paused. But here, her life
did not fork. She would never pass up a twinkle. She picked it up and
looked at it. A diamond, possibly, or a crystal. She gazed at it, and
thought for a moment that she saw in it the young face of her father.

She was surprised and mystified.

"This," she said. "Must be a magic crystal. I should
leave it here. After all, it is not mine."

When his daughter placed the crystal back into the gutter a strange
think happened. The fork in reality that Stan had created, crumpled
on itself. Stan had never picked up the diamond. Stan had never gone
to prison. Stan in this reality never existed. This reality collapsed
inward upon the second.

Only one reality existed from that moment onward. And in it, his
daughter existed and had a father.

During a far past, before humankind walked this earth,
a monkey god ruled over all monkeys. A particular monkey,
let's name him Bob, awoke in a tree.

Bob slipped from a wet branch following a storm. He fell with
an awkward thump on soft dirt. This angered the monkey unlike
any monkey had been angered before. Bob bounced and shook his
fist at the sky.

The monkey god interpreted this as an offense. Without the
ability to think why, the monkey god caused Bob to lose
his hand. The hand fell to the ground and became a knot
made of plant material.

Years later, when humans walked the earth, a similar knot
was named a monkey's fist. The monkey's fist was used
to toss a light line from one ship to another, so that a
heavy line might be hauled after.

When human kind first walked the earth, they created their
own gods. These human gods quickly subjugated the animal
gods, including the monkey god, to a second tier. A less
powerful level.

Eventually humans invented a dictator god. This male god
was jealous of its power and would do anything to insure
continuation of its rule. Its power was derived from
the vast number of humans inhabiting the earth.

Early human gods were turned into angels. Early animal gods
were tuned into daemons.

A couple of thousand years passed.

The monkey daemon visited a laboratory and there found
monkeys used for research. The monkey daemon noticed that
one of the monkeys lay with its hand removed, a robotic
hand nearby about to be attached.

Deep in its memory and far ago, the monkey daemon
remembered another monkey. An angry monkey whose hand it
had removed. Although the monkey daemon could not articulate
the thought, it felt remorse.

The monkey daemon reached back in time and plucked Bob from is
place under that wet tree. He pulled Bob forward in time
and placed him on a dry tree in the middle park of a City.

Although the monkey daemon could not know it, Bob carried
a virus. Bob's virus was instantly fatal to humans.

Without the ability to think the thought,
the monkey daemon had thrown down the
first gauntlet in a war. The number of humans would decline.
The power of the dictator god would decline. Eventually
the other human gods would overthrow the dictator and
restore the god/world relationship to balance.

A 15 year old boy hit a home run.
The ball sailed over a high fence and
hit an animal in a tree. The animal shouldn't have been there.
The animal was knocked from the tree and landed on soft dirt.
It was a monkey who became angry and waved its
fist at the sky. Nothing happened. The monkey felt hungry so it
began to wander in search of food.

Wendy Roy exited the Sacramento Amtrak station when
an elderly woman in a bright pink sweater
just stopped in front of her. Wendy
stopped too and a man bumped her from behind.

"Don't stop in a doorway," the man said as he brushed by her.

Wendy put her hands on the old woman's shoulders and gently
guided her out of the doorway. Then she stepped in front of
the old woman to speak to her.

"You need to be careful to not stop in doorways. You might
get hurt."

"Is this heaven?"

Wendy looked around. "No, this is Sacramento. That's I street
and Chinatown."

The old woman's eyes rose to look at something in the sky.
"Is that the face of God?"

Wendy looked over her shoulders. Thousands of crows had
taken off from the trees in Chinatown. Wendy turned and
watched the display. "No," she said over her shoulder to
the old woman.
"That's not the face of God. It's just stupid birds. Crows,
I think."

"I once," said a man who stepped up to Wendy's left.

Wendy looked at him and saw a mid-aged man, well dressed
in a suit and tie, also watching the crows.

"I once saw starlings take off from trees near I-5. They
flew in designs and swirls so complex
they could easily remind one of God."

A young woman appeared on Wendy's right and looked at the birds too.
"I'm from San Francisco," she said. "And sometimes we get
sea gulls and pelicans and crows and parrots and tiny birds all mixing
it up in the sky at once."

Wendy looked over her shoulder to see if the old woman
was still watching. But the old woman was gone. Wendy turned
completely around and looked all directions. Not a sign of the
old woman anywhere.

Then Wendy noticed the old woman's bright pink sweater
lying on the ground. It almost felt to Wendy as if the old
woman had discarded it then, ascended, to fly with the birds.

"There go the birds," the man said from behind her.

Wendy looked around again, and everyone appeared
to be walking off.

Wendy shrugged. Then she continued on her way to
her morning's first appointment.

Ted Knowbote loved boats but had never owned one. He lived
in the Richmond district of San Francisco and often saw the
ocean but seldom saw boats. On a whim, one day, he decided
to visit the houseboats in Sausalito.

He strolled out Issaquah dock, enjoying the sun and the
art and the beautiful house boats. He paused and pulled
a real-estate ad from a box and was startled to see the price.
A smallish houseboat was selling for $700,000.

He almost turned to leave when a man approached him.

"Hi," the man said. "Would you like to buy a sail boat?"

"What? Sure," Ted confessed. He'd always wanted a sail boat.
Ted sized up the man. He appeared honest and well dressed.

"My wife and I have split. You know. She locked me out. But I have
a boat out back and I need the money."

"Can I see it?"

"Like I said, I'm locked out. But, yeah. Let's go down to the
end of the dock. You can look behind and see it."

The man led Ted down the dock to the end where it turned right.
Along the way the man complained without pause about his wife
and the terrible things she had done to him.

"Here," the man said. "Look down there." He pointed over the railing at a red sail part way down the row of houseboats. "A 28 foot sloop.
Fiberglass. Needs lots of work. You see that sail?"

"Yeah," said Ted.

"My wife is doing that. Leaving the sails up so the sun will
ruin them."

"How much you want for the boat?"

The man rubbed his chin. "How does $700 sound?"

"Terrific," Ted said.

"You have an ATM? I can take you to get cash. What kind of
bank do you have?"

"Wells Fargo," Ted said.

A woman's voice yelled at them. "Hey you," she called.

The man looked up and appeared a bit uneasy.

"Hey you, you there."

The man spotted the woman. "Oops," he said to Ted. "I gotta
run."

The man patted Ted on the arm then ran.

"But the boat...," Ted called after the man.

The woman approached. Ted looked her over and classified her
as elderly but well appointed.

"That man is a scalawag," the woman said. "He's been caught
a few times selling off art from these houseboats."

"You mean he's a crook?"

"A grifter, a con artist, a thief."

"But he was going to sell me a boat."

The woman laughed. "Sell you a pig in a poke."

The woman laughed again, and walked off.

Ted leaned on the railing and gazed at the red sail.
"Too bad," he said. "That would have been a fine boat."

Ted didn't realize speech carried a long ways on those
quiet docks.

The woman called back to him, "Better no boat, than no
boat and no money." He heard her laugh again.

Drad Simons didn't like living in Sausalito. He hated his small school.
The town was boring to death.
Drad longed to live in San Francisco just across the bay.

Drad's folks were Franciscofobes. They never, ever, visited the
city just across the Golden Gate. All trips were north, to the coast
or to the wine country. Drad had never flown on a plane, ridden on
a ferry, or taken a train or trolley.

Drad liked to skate board along the sidewalk on Bridgeway Road.
On a calm day, he could watch the ferry heading to distant
San Francisco. And on such days, he would dream.

Drad, in today's dream, stood before a large pane-glass window
looking across the bay at Sausalito. He was high in a tall
office building.

"Take a memo," he would say to his secretary. "To my parents."

"Yes sir," his secretary would say.

"Mom and dad," he would begin.

Then his skate board wheel hit, of all
things, a pine cone, which stuck and caused an annoying squeal.

Drad cleared the pine cone and tossed it into the bay.

Drad stood, holding his skate board under his arm, and stared
at the City. He sighed.

His cellphone rang. It was his mom.

"Drad dear," she said. "Dinner in a half hour. You better head
right back home now."

"Aw mom."

"I mean right now. And don't argue with me."

Drad wanted, in that moment to throw the
phone into the bay, just like he'd thrown the pine cone.
He wanted to run away from home. He wanted to visit the
City, just across the bay, yet so perpetually distant.

But the moment passed.

Drad skate-boarded home. Along the way he dreamed. But this time
he dreamed of pirates swordfighting somewhere off Cuba.

Wendy and Rick Locke approached the houseboat at the end
of the narrow dock with trepidation. They didn't know what
to expect. Whenever they bought an item off craigslist, the
trip to pick it up was always an adventure.

Rick looked over his shoulder and noticed fog rolling
in over the hills. "Look's almost like the hill's are boiling
over," he said.

"Watch your step," Wendy advised and took his arm.

They crossed the short gangway and knocked on the front door.

"Did you remember the cash?" Wendy asked.

"As always," Rick patted his jacket pocket. "As always."

The door opened to reveal a middle aged woman with green dyed
hair. "You here for the pictures?" she asked.
She was well dressed, like she was on her way to a formal dinner.

Wendy reached to shake the woman's hand.
"First let me say how sorry we are for your loss."

"Posh posh," the woman said. She shook Wendy's hand lightly.

"I thought your husband was killed," Wendy said.

"Posh posh," the woman said. "I'll just go get the box
of photographs."

"How insensitive," Wendy said to Rick after the woman
was gone. "You'd think she'd miss her husband or something.
I mean, really! I heard he was shot down in the street."

"Like water off a duck," Rick said. He always had a homily handy
to assuage his wife. "Like water off a duck."

The woman returned with a shoe box. "You have the money?"

Rick pulled the envelope from his jacket pocket and opened
it for the woman to see.

The woman smiled a wicked smile. "Is that the whole two
hundred dollars?"

"Spot on," Rick said.

"Tell you what," the woman said. She withdrew the box and
set it on a table just out of sight inside. "You give me
that two hundred dollars and this house boat is yours."

"What?" Rick said. He didn't like to be kidded. He looked
over the front of the house with an exaggerated movement of
his head. "This place must be worth a million bucks easy."

"Posh posh," the woman said. "Come with me to my lawyer.
Once I am free of all ties I can return to France, to my
home. The house is yours, with everything, even the box of
photographs."

"This is crazy," Rick said. "How can you give away a house?"

Wendy placed a hand on his arm. "Like water off a duck," she
said.

Rick met Wendy's eyes and realized what she meant.

Later, the woman, Wendy and Rick walked back along the
dock toward the parking lot. The fog was fully in and
the dock appeared dark and ominous, like in a horror film.

Steve and Stuart Eisen were into the stoutness of steel.
The brothers were on a bicycle tour (riding aluminum bikes, go fig) around
the great state of California.
They intended to visit all things built of steel. One sunny Sunday in Sacramento,
the brothers happened upon the Tower Bridge, glowing golden above the Sacramento
River.

"Good golly, Stu," Steve said as he dismounted. "This is one hell of a bridge, located
in almost no-wheres-ville."

"Oh contrary," Stu spoke as he too dismounted. "This is, after all, the state
capital. I would hardly call that nowhere."

Steve gazed up at the center control room. "Even the control room is made of
steel. Perhaps it was designed to withstand a battle or a flood."

Stu leaned over the edge of the bridge and looked down along the river.
"Look," he pointed at the base of the bridge. "A depth gauge."

Steve looked too. "Oh, I see. The water, at flood height, would be right up to there. Just
kissing the base of the under-part of the roadway."

"Yes, and then the bridge might topple."

"Surely not this bridge, it is so certainly stout."

"I contend that even this bridge could topple given a powerful enough flood."

"According to the GPS," Steve changed the subject. "There are some bars and
restaurants just over there."

"I propose we find Mexican food and beer and discuss this matter further while
seated in comfort."

"I concur." Steve re-mounted his bicycle then lead his brother the rest of the way
across the bridge and into Old Town, where beers and brurritos awaited and talks
of stout steel could continue.

Every Saturday night, the elders of Church of Gea would gather
all the balls and globes in town and lock them up. It was, under
their religion, forbidden to play or study with any likeness of the Earth
on Sunday.

A few found this ban awfully silly, especially Velt Floimeur, the town
clown. In fact, Velt found almost everything the Church did, silly.

"What's that you have there?" asked Rev. Blossom. "A square nose?"

"Why yes," Velt said. He squeezed his cube shaped nose and it honked."

Nancy Dibbs was the ring leader. "It's so cold out, so lets hang
in the train museum." The other four girls thought that was a fine
idea, so they all went in at student rates.

"We'll take turns," Nancy told them. "Each of us will lead an act
of fun, so real we will all be entertained. Something using trains,
of course, cuz we're here."

"Oh, oh," Sally waved her hand. "I have one. Let's all get on the
sleeping car an pretend we are in Some Like It Hot, that old
movie."

It was agreed, that would be worthwhile to pretend, so they piled
into the sleeping car and began to camp up and clown around. It wasn't
long before they were all laughing. Then a guide happened by and told
them to stop "Horsing around."

Kelly was next. She suggested, "We have been kidnapped and escaped.
We have to hide behind an engine so the kidnapers won't find us.

They spent twenty minutes behind a greasy smelling locomotive, talking
at first how terrible it was to be kidnapped and how lucky they were to
be free at last. But the conversation slowly turned to the topic of
boys and then it became Nancy's turn.

"You hear that whistle?"

The other girls pretended they did.

"That's the two-twenty for Baltimore. We are on our way to a modeling
gig. We need to catch that train to get there in time. If we miss
the train we will lose out on the job."

"Where's the train?" Sally asked.

"This way," Nancy called and waved her hand. "Follow me."

They dashed across the floor of the museum. They rounded one parked train
and jogged across fake gravel. Through a cardboard doorway, then up a platform
and alongside the waiting train.

The doors were open and, in the distance, a man called, "All 'board."

The five girls piled onto the train and found seats at the front together.
They plopped into them, exhausted. They felt the train lurch and move.

"Who has the tickets?" Nancy asked.

The others looked at each other, but nobody had tickets.

"We'd better get off," Nancy said.

They left their seats and made their way back to the door. Outside the
countryside was whistling past. Trees, then fields, then trees.
The wind from the doorway was cold. Nancy peered out around the corner.
"We'll pass over a river soon. Get ready to jump."

The girl's held hands.

"Now!"

They jumped as one. They sailed through the air and landed hard
in the ice cold water. None of them was afraid because they were all
good swimmers and the shore was near.

Carley Bennet bore her wealth and advanced age well. She
dismissed the nurse from her aged mother's room and stood
holding a child decorated box of old photographs in her hands.
She placed the box on the end table and withdrew the first photo.

Carley held the photo carefully upright and square to her mothers
glasses corrected eyes. "Our pool, at our second home in Los Angeles."

Her mother blinked but appeared to stare beyond the photo. "Pillow
too hard," her mother said.

Carley was tempted to recall the nurse, but dismissed the idea as foolish.
She ignored her mother's complaint and displayed the second photo.

"This shows you and father at the Grand Canyon. I believe this was taken
before I was born."

Her mother sniffled.

Carley, reached for the next photo and hesitated. She grew impatient.
Carley had previously seeded the box with a particular photo. She withdrew
that photo now and displayed it to her mother.

"This is the front door to our first home. Remember? Father lost his job and
you feared it would be repossessed. You let us decorate the outside. But then
the factory reopened and father was promoted. I decorated this door on
mother's day."

Carley's mother cocked her head.

Carley felt hope. "You replaced these doors with real doors and stored them
in the garage. Then we moved. You remember?"

Carley's mother said, "Jello. I want some Jello."

Carley replaced the photo and closed the box. She walked to the bedroom
door and opened it. Open wide the drawing was visible upon it.

"Look mother," Carley called. "The door we painted as kids. The door we
painted on that mother's day long ago. I had workmen install it here
while you were last at the hospital for tests."

Dr. Dan Flemmer pushed the cardboard off himself and sat up. His head
spun. His vision blurred. His ears rang. His head and back hurt.

"Flaming balls of yogurt," he said. "Just how old am I, anyway?"

Dr. Dan Flemmer felt a cold chain around his neck. He followed it with
his hands to his chest. There he found a plastic holder of some sort.
He held the plastic holder far from his eyes to focus on it.

"Jumping jehosephat!," he said. "I'm going blind."

The plastic holder contained his ID. It said his name was Phil Browning.
The word doctor didn't appear on it anywhere.

"Not a doctor?" Phil looked at the mural. "You mock me."

Phil gathered his gumption and managed --using the mural for support-- to
stand. His legs shook then steadied. Be brave, the mural's
creatures seemed to him to say.

"Too old," he said. "Too old to be brave."

Phil looked at his ID again. The picture was that of a young man.
Phil flipped it over and looked for an age. He found it and marveled
at it. "I'm only twenty-nine."

"Hey Jack!" called someone from a window above. "What in tarnation you
doing sleeping on the street?"

Phil looked up and saw a face he recognized as his roommate. "What did
you call me?"

"Did you do drugs or what, Jack? Get up here and take a shower."

Jack scratched his head. "Okay."

Jack looked at the mural again. This time he seemed to understand
why the creatures were smiling. "I'd smile at me too," he said.
"Don't even know my own name. What kind of a dufus am I anyway?"

Mary Turgen's handle on the makeadate.com web site was
clowngirl. She had arranged to meet her date,
a shaggy haired lad named Dave, whose handle on that dating
site was nonbeliever.

She waited at the top of the steps of the capitol building on
its south side. She had colored her hair special for this
date, a bright orange. Her nails and lips were green. She wore
a short black dress over tight black denim pants. A red cape
formed counterpoint and accent to her red running shoes.

Mary checked her red cellphone and saw she was two minutes
late. She mumbled to herself, "Not a sign of
my date yet."

From the corner of her eye, Mary glimpsed another woman
coming up the same steps at the far other end. Mary looked
and saw what must have been herself. The other woman
could have been her twin.

"Who are you?" asked the other woman.

"Mary," Mary said and crossed her arms. She glared at the
other woman. That other woman was dressed and colored the same
as Mary, but appeared somehow cheaper, less genuine.

Dahl Robertson sat on an abutment and awaited his train's
arrival. He thought of Janis Joplin and the music she sang.
Too bad she died young. Imagine, he thought. Being
blind-sided by death like that. Dahl hated to be blind-sided.

Dahl closed his eyes and tried to picture Janis on stage like
he'd once seen in that documentary about Monterey Pop. He thought
of her singing "Me and Bobby McGee" one of Dahl's favorite songs.

Dahl started to hum along. He started to tap his foot. Dahl
smiled.

"Hey mister," a young boy's voice intruded.

Dahl opened his eyes and saw a boy dressed in a pea hat and
thick coat. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Where's your ipod? I don't see any wires."

Dahl glanced up and noticed the boy's father standing
nervously a few paces away. "I don't have an ipod," Dahl said to
the boy.

The boy looked at both Dahl's ears. "You don't have a blue teeth
either."

"You probably mean a blue tooth," Dahl said. "No
I don't have one of those either."

The boy folded his arms which made him look belligerent. "Then how
are you listening to music?" the boy asked

"In my head."

The boy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I picture the music in my head. It's like I remember a singer
and picture that singer singing. You know, kind of like
watching a TV in my head."

The boy ran back to his father. "Dad, dad," he called. Then
he pointed back at Dahl. "That man has a TV in his head."

The father put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said as much
to Dahl as to his son, "You should stay away from people like
that, they are not right in the head."

Dahl frowned at the father. "Oh yeah! Someday your son will
grow up and they'll put his brain in a jar, and fill his
head with Chinese electronic gadgets."

The boy wailed, "Dad!" And hugged his father.

"How dare you," a woman's voice intruded from his left.

Dahl looked up and saw an angry woman. Dahl hated to be
blind-sided.

"How dare you," she said. "My son has a Cochlear implant and
is very sensitive about it. Have you no compassion?"

Dahl grabbed hid bag, stood and grunted. His eyes on the ground he walked
deliberately away from the woman, her son, and the father,
to the other end of the station. There, he stopped
and looked around. No kids.

Dahl sat on an abutment and closed his eyes. He pictured
Janis Joplin singing on the stage and heard her singing
"Me and Bobby McGee" again.

Stan was a friend of mine who worked in Old Town.
He wasn't the sharpest stick in my quiver of friends
but he was loyal. So it never surprised me when he
would telephone with odd news. As it happens, it was
news that led up to the strangest occurrence I ever saw.

"Ben," he said that morning. "Get your butt on your bike and
join me across the river."

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll see."

Stan never steered me wrong so I jumped on my bicycle
and headed over Tower Bridge. I was only half way across
when I noticed why Stan had called. On the other side
from Old Town, a huge pyramid had appeared. It was
fuzzy and difficult to look at despite sharp sunlight.

As I drew closer, I saw it was floating a couple feet
over the ground. As I drew alongside, I saw Stan.

"Ben," he called. "There's gold under there."

"I wouldn't do that," I yelled. But too late. Stan
had dropped to his knees and already crawled under the pyramid.

I peered under and noticed that despite the huge
apparent weight of the pyramid, the grass under
it was not bent at all. I saw Stan and maybe two dozen
others crawling under it toward a mysterious gold glow.

I heard sirens and soon police arrived to shepard
everyone back from the pyramid. But by then, at least
a couple hundred folks had crawled under to find the
gold.

I, like most folk, was a hundred feet away, behind
the police line, when the pyramid vanished. There
was a collective oooh, in which I participated.

Then I heard, several loud calls of "Hey look."
So I stood on tip toes and looked.
In the middle of the field where the pyramid had
floated, stood a gold statue. It appeared to be
almost twelve or so feet tall, and was the
spitting image of a sitting Buddha.

Then I noticed that all the people who had crawled
under the pyramid were gone.

Months passed. The military hauled the gold
statue away over the screaming of the Governor. A permanent
fence was set up around the field to keep the tourists out.

I remember it was Sunday, the middle of the night, when Stan next telephoned.

"Ben," he said. "Where did everybody go? One minute
I was crawling under that pyramid, and the next
we were all stuck here inside this fence. And it's night time!"

"Where are you now?"

"On my way to your place if I can get over this fence.
Oops. Hey! Look at that!" And his phone went dead.

I never saw nor heard from Stan again. And, like I said, it
was a very strange occurrence.

Who would have ever thought that those primitive natives
would prove right. Not Granny, of course, raised by a
preacher father during the great depression. But there she
was, her ghost trapped in the photograph nearest her when
she died.

A native man on television objects, "No, no. No photo. We
believe that photographs steal our souls."

Granny was trapped in a photograph on a shelf facing
a large screen television. This would have been good enough
for her, but she was not alone. Behind her, and so out of
focus he was invisible, a man was trapped too.

"Someday," he would pontificate. "All the people will die.
When that happens we ghosts will be freed."

Granny was about to answer him when she was frozen again.
A human's eyes must be looking at her. When ever a human
looked at the photo in which she was trapped, she would
become paralyzed, unable to move a muscle.

Suddenly her view changed. It hadn't changed in years. She
heard the human's say, "I hate moving." Then she found herself
face up looking at the ceiling. Other objects piled on top
of her and she unfroze.

The man said, "We're being put in storage. We will never see
light again."

"Blazes," Granny said. "You always lie. When our glass broke
you said it would never be fixed but it was. When we were
put in a photography studio to be copied, you said we were
abandoned, but we were not. You always lie."

"Mark my words," the man said.

"Mark your own words. I wish I had arms. If I did,
I'd punch you in your out-of-focus face."

Granny lived in darkness for a day than emerged to light
again. She was set on a shelf facing a window. Outside
the window was a hill. And what a hill it was!

People walked on the sidewalks. Cars zipped by on the road.
Kids paused and peered in the front window.

Granny felt herself a part of civilization again.

"Hey, out-of-focus man."

"Mark my words."

"Say anything you want. For the first time in a long
time, I feel a little bit alive again."

Some would find it ironic. Some might find it prophetic.
But all would agree that Granny's photo looked better
than it ever had, sitting as it was now, in daylight,
on a shelf, in an antique store, with a sign, frame
for sale, $5.00.

Ace reporter, Jerry Watchly, was hit by the death ray and reduced
to a puddle in asphalt.

"Hey," objected Billy. "That's not fair. How can I finish the story
when your turn does that?"

"Lack of rules," Fanny, his girlfriend, said. "As I recall, it was your
idea to free us of all rules."

Billy lifted his baseball hat and scratched his shaven head. Then he
continued.

What the aliens didn't know. What they could not know, was that that
very piece of asphalt had been seeded. Not by plant seeds. No. But by
seeds of DNA. The most diabolical DNA of all.

Fanny tossed her decaf, soy latte in the garbage can. "You ready to
leave?" she asked.

Billy guzzled his and said, "Yes dear."

"My turn," said Fanny, as they exited Starbucks.

That night it rained. The rain was driven by winds from the south.
So it was a warm rain with lightening. A bolt of lightening hit
a PCB filled PG&E transformer on a pole overhead. Sparks
fell in the puddle that used to be Jerry Watchly, ace reporter.
Something grew. Something new, something evil.

"Hey," Billy said. "No fair. Why make it evil. Couldn't you end
with just 'new'?"

"No rules," Fanny said.

"Here comes the trolley," Billy said. "Let's run for it."

"Let's not," Fanny said and grabbed Billy's arm before he could
dart off. "There's lots of time before it starts. Let's walk and
finish the story."

Okay," Billy muttered.

"Don't pout."

"I'm not pouting. I'm thinking." Billy stuck his fists in his
coat pockets and continued the story.

The thing grew. Green and fuzzy. It was an aggressive mold that
dissolved everything in its path. All life. All metals. All stone.
It grew and Terra-formed the planet into a huge, green fuzzy ball.
Because the ball was hostile to the aliens, it saved the planet
from invasion. The end.

"Now whose being unfair," Fanny said. "Ending the story early like that."

"No rules," Billy pointed out. "It's your turn to start a new story."

"No," Fanny said. "Let's just catch the Trolley."

"Now, whose pouting?"

"I'm not pouting," Fanny said cheerfully. "I'm trying to remember
which theater it was."

Billy held out his hand and looked at the sky. "I think it's starting
to rain."

Fanny cocked her head and listened. "I think I hear thunder."

They both laughed.

"Here comes the next trolley. Let's run."

"Okay."

So they ran for their trolley, made it to their movie in time, and
returned home hungry and tired.

Neither of them had noticed the pothole between the trolley tracks.
Neither of them had been aware of green growing there. An evil
green, a mutated, green moss bent on taking over the world.

Donny Dasher knew that his red umbrella would protect him from rain. But he had
no idea that it would also protect him from fate.

Donny went for a combined brisk-walk and periodic jog every morning
as soon as the sun was fully up. This schedule insured it
was always light enough to be safe,
yet early enough to still get to work on time when finished.
Some days, like the present day, Donny had to leave before the sun
emerged. Today, for example, the sun hid from a day of rain.

Donny was brisk-walking up 9th Street. The rain was a little on the heavy
side, so he dipped his umbrella forward to keep the rain off his face.

The leading edge of Donny's umbrella bumped a tree, so Donny stopped.

"I wonder why they plant tree's so far into the sidewalk," Donny said to nobody
in particular. "The sidewalk is not wide enough in the first place. Lucky
I'm alone, or else we would have to walk single file here."

Donny sighed at the thought of, "we."

A terrible crash of glass tore open the morning. Not more than ten feet ahead
of Donny a large, tempered glass window had fallen and exploded on the sidewalk.

Donny looked up at his red umbrella. "You wouldn't have been able to save me from that,"
he said.

Then he looked at the tree. "Hm. Maybe you did. Maybe you did."

Later that day, while eating a tuna melt for lunch, Donny wrote a letter to the
City complaining about tree's planted in the middle of sidewalks. He finished it,
and signed it. Then he looked at his red umbrella leaning against the table. "Sorry,"
he said. And he tore up the letter.

Little Sally Saltnick stood with her mother outside the junk store
window. Sally lived in a magical city somewhere in the west.

"Look," Sally said to her mother. "A fairy, a fairy. Can I have it?
Can I?"

"You don't want that dirty thing. Look at it. It's cracked and one of
its wings is torn."

"Oh mommy. Please, please, please. I can fix it. I really can."

Her mother sighed and led Sally into the store.

"Good afternoon," said the proprietor. "What can I do for you today?"

"How much is that fairy in the window?" Sally's mother asked. "The one
with the crack on her head?"

The proprietor leaned over the counter and looked at Sally. "Is this
fairy for you?"

Sally knew better than to talk to strangers so she only opened her
eyes wide and smiled.

The proprietor stood and turned. He plucked the fairy from the window behind
him. To Sally's mother, he said, "For you and your
lovely child. Only a half a buck."

Sally's mother paid the half buck and thanked the proprietor.

The proprietor put the fairy in a paper sack. For in this magical town,
not a single store would ever dare use a plastic bag.

That evening, Sally stood and looked at the fairy on her dresser top.
The fairy looked so sad and broken it made Sally sad. A single tear ran
down her cheek.

"Are you thirsty?" she asked.

The fairy seemed thirsty so Sally scooped up her tear on a finger tip and
pressed it to the lips of the fairy.

Sally felt herself rush forward in time. She stood in a kitchen. She felt fear.

"Babe!" a man's voice called. "Get me that damn beer!"

Sally felt hatred. She pulled a beer from the fridge and opened it.
She heard herself think, I'll kill that bastard. I swear. Some day
I will kill that bastard.

She entered the living room. A handsome man was sprawled
on the sofa. He had a tattoo on his arm and wore a white tee shirt.
Sally felt fear again.

Like a yo-yo, Sally came reeling back in time to her bedroom again.

"You lie," she sad to the fairy. "You lie. I could never hate
a handsome man like that."

Sally grabbed the fairy and carried it downstairs to the kitchen.
She opened the lid and tossed the fairy into the recycling bin.
For in this magical town, not a single house would ever dare put anything
into landfill.

Bryan and Terry were dressed to the nines in tux and gown. They stood mid block, waiting
for traffic to clear so they could jay walk. They had tickets to Man of La Mancha
and were running a bit late. They felt the ground shift, and thought a small earthquake
had struck. Power failed and the street went completely dark.

Bright sunlight blinded them. They found themselves on the same sidewalk as before, but
thrown back forty years into the past.

"Yikes," Bryan said. "What the heck happened?"

"Look," Terry said. "I'm in my original wedding dress." She spun in place and held out
her bouquet. "It's magic."

Bryan pointed across the street. "The theater is gone. It's hard to believe that house on
a hill with become a huge theater complex."

Terry plucked his sleeve. "And look at you. You look like a little boy. So young. And in
such a young man's suit. So cute."

"And the cars," Bryan said. He bent and looked into one. "A steel dash and no seat belts.
And look, an ash tray overflowing with cigarette butts."

Terry batted Bryan in the butt with her bouquet. "Hey, don't you get it? We went back in
time. Isn't that amazing?"

"Huh?"

Terry shook Bryan's arm again. "You better turn off your cell phone. The play is about
to start."

"Huh?"

"Are you living in the past again? I mean really." Terry, sitting next to him, patted his arm.
"What reminded you of the past this time?"

"The sidewalk."

"What sidewalk? We're sitting in a theater."

"The sidewalk outside. You know, the one we stood on just before crossing at the middle
of the block. Isn't that where we got married?"

"Good gosh," Terry said. "I think you may be right. It all looks so different now. But
I think you may have hit on something." She patted his arm. "Nice."

"Did you remember to turn off your cell phone?" Bryan asked. "The play is about to start."

The lights dimmed in the theater and the play began. From inside the theater,
the sidewalk outside was, again, forgotten. At least, that is, until the play ended and they
once more crossed mid-block.

Wendy was at the carousel with two friends and the French
daughter of her parent's friends. The French girl's name
was Eva and she spoke pretty good English.

The other two girls, Donna and Sue were in the same grade
as Wendy at Rosemont Elementary.

The sign on the carousel ticket machine said that children under forty inches must
ride under the supervision of parents.

"How many feet is forty inches?" Donna asked. "I'm four feet, two."

"Three feet is thirty-six inches," Sue said. "Add four and you
get forty inches, so that's three feet, four inches. You're, like,
way tall enough."

"You're too darn smart sometimes," Wendy said.

Eva, the French girl, said, "You're as bad as the English. I'm one oh two
centimeters, how tall is that?"

Wendy noticed that she and Eva were nearly the same size.
"I know," she said. "Stand back to back with me," she told Eva.

The two girls stood back to back.

"Eva is a hair shorter," Donna said.

"How much?" asked Eva.

Donna held her fingers a little apart. "This far."

Sue said, "There's two point five centimeters to the inch."

"Excellent," Eva said. "Finally an American that knows something."

"How do you know that?" Wendy asked Sue.

"My dad explained it to me." Sue said. She frowned, clearly
calculating. "That means like twenty five centimeters in ten
inches. Or one hundred centimeters in forty inches. So if
you're one oh two centimeters, you're two centimeters over
the limit. You're, like, really tall enough!"

Wendy shook her head sadly at the display of arithmetic.

"Wow," Donna said.

"Cool," Eva said. "Thank you."

"So let's go on the merry go round," Donna said.

"You mean carousel?" Eva asked.

The girls laughed.

"This is boring," Wendy said. "Let's go window shopping instead."

Sue put her hand over Eva's mouth. "Don't say it."

Eva pushed her hand away. "What?"

"We're not going to shop for windows."

The girls laughed again. Then they like, all dashed as one back down the
mallway is search of fashion and snacks.

The late afternoon sun cast shadow light across the marina. Betty and her
pal Paula were late because two accidents had impeded the bridge traffic.
Betty felt frazzled. Paula felt the worries of the day fall from her
shoulders like a duck shedding spring rain.

Paula was first aboard their small sloop. "I don't care," she said. "All I
have to do is step aboard and, poof, there go all my cares."

"I really don't understand how you can get over it so easy. I mean, two hours
stuck, not moving on that bridge. The swaying of the bridge alone
made me want to throw up."

Paula whistled the bosun's call. "Permission to come aboard granted."

Betty hopped into the small boat and plopped down to sit on the bare
fiberglass. "We got any wine left?"

Paula unlocked the door to the companionway and opened it. From inside she
pulled out the cushions they'd tossed there when they last returned to dock.
"Here, have a cushion to sit on."

"I mean," Betty continued. "How could a truck jack-knife? I didn't think
they allowed trucks on the Golden Gate bridge."

Paula had crawled inside the small cabin and was rummaging. "Neither did
I," she called. "But we're here now, at the marina, so relax."
She emerged carrying an unopened
bottle of wine, a cork screw and two plastic cups. "I found wine."

Betty looked at her watch. "Four-thirty. We'll get out there by five-thirty,
at the earliest, and it gets dark at six."

Paula pulled the cork and held up the bottle. "It's red. I hope that's
okay."

"It could be Red Mountain for all I care."

Paula poured two glasses and handed one to Betty. Paula took a sip.
Betty guzzled hers down.

Paula watched Betty. She saw the wine take effect. Betty appeared to
relax.

A much calmer Betty said, "Let's skip sailing. I always wanted to
eat dinner at Scoma's. What do you say?"

Sally Fielding ran up steps to the top deck of the ferry.
She found a bench to sit on and sat and pouted. Her parents
were going to buy a Sausalito houseboat and that made Sally
unhappy.

"Why would I want to move?" Sally muttered to herself. "I have
friends in San Francisco and there's so much to do there.
Sausalito is just plain dull."

The Ferry docked and Sally's parents found her. They met the
real-estate salesman at his car at Bay and Bridgeway streets. Sally
rode next to her mother. She didn't watch the town as it
passed. The town didn't interest her.

The real-estate salesman apologized, "Sorry that the houseboat
is so far out. It's almost at the end."

Sally knew her father was rich so could buy any houseboat he
wanted. And that made her even sadder.

They entered the houseboat and the inside took Sally's breath
away. It was beautiful. Lots of windows overlooked water
and the bay. A circular stairway rose through the center of the
living room.

Sally followed her parents around and looked at everything.

Walking back to the car afterward, Sally pulled her mother's
sleeve and asked, "Are we going to buy that houseboat?"

Her mother laughed and and said to the salesman, "You have
to forgive her, she lives inside her own reality."

Something in that statement struck Sally as wrong. She'd heard
it said lots of times before, but today it felt so very wrong.

Sally started to pay attention. The salesman, she realized,
was really the owner of the houseboat. Her dad, she remembered,
was not rich, but was a cabinet maker there to bid on a job.
And she didn't live in San Francisco, she lived in Hayward.

Back on the ferry, Sally ran to the top deck again and
pouted. Try as she could, she could no longer believe her
old reality. This reality was now real. "Not fair," she wailed.

Others on the ferry were too busy taking photographs to pay Sally
any attention. They didn't know that they, too, were a part of
Sally's new reality.